Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order banning the contested synthetic intelligence app DeepSeek and the favored TikTok different RedNote from government-issued gadgets, turning into the primary state to dam the Chinese language apps.
The governor’s problem additionally prohibited Lemon8, one other social media app owned by TikTok’s Chinese language guardian firm Bytedance, which many turned to on the eve of TikTok’s short-term shutdown in the USA.
“Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps. Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors,” Abbott stated in a press release.
The rising AI platform DeepSeek took the market by storm after it proved to outperform the US’s OpenAI at a a lot decrease price.
Final week, the app brought on tech shares to dip by $1 trillion, creating panic on Wall Avenue.
The chatbot has raised safety considerations not dissimilar to those who led to TikTok’s ban. The app, which has been downloaded over 2 million occasions since its debut on Jan. 15, reportedly collects and shops US person information in China.
All corporations primarily based in China are required by legislation to share any information with the Chinese language Communist Social gathering authorities upon request — doubtlessly placing American person information in fingers unfriendly to the US.
Others have already began blocking the AI chatbot attributable to safety considerations, together with the US Navy.
RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, was the lifeboat for TikTok’s sinking Titanic because the ban loomed in early January. It’s a well-liked social media app in China and different components of East Asia, together with Malaysia and Taiwan.
TikTok has already been banned on authorities gadgets since former President Joe Biden signed an act prohibiting it in Dec. 2022. The app’s future remains to be shaky following President Trump’s eleventh-hour intervention the day earlier than his inauguration granting ByteDance extra time to promote the app.
The favored app was restricted in the USA for mere hours on Jan. 18, randomly shutting down round 10:30 p.m. regardless of many customers believing they’d till midnight. It was up once more in a bit of over 12 hours following an evening of widespread confusion.
At present, Microsoft is believed to be a frontrunner for TikTok’s buy.
With Publish wires
